How To Free Up iPhone Storage by Deleting Photos From Messages

By Kelly Guimont

Aug 28th, 2014 6:40 PM EDT

Sometimes your iPhone or iPad gives you warnings about being full, and you notice that Messages is taking up a ton of space. How can text be using that much of your device, I hear you ask? It may not be, all those photos back and forth take up space too.

If you save the photos you want to your photo roll for safekeeping, the rest of the pics in Messages are just taking up extra space. Thankfully, there's a way to delete those extra photos so you can reclaim space on your iPhone or iPad.

First, here's how to save a photo you want to keep. Start by locating the thread with the photo:

Look at that face. Of course I need to save this picture!

Tap on the photo, and it should show up full screen. From there, tap the share button and you can save the image to your camera roll.

Save Image. Because cute.

Not all pictures are quite this adorable. Here's how to remove those:

Again, launch messages and find the thread with photos in it. Like this one.

Planning. As one does.

Admittedly, that pic was an excellent illustrative aid at the time, but do I need to keep it? Not at all.

To delete it, tap and hold on the photo itself until you get a popup menu.

Long tap will pop up a nice menu for you.

Choose "More…" and you should see circles appear on the left hand side of the screen for each entry in the thread, including images. You can check the ones you want to remove, and tap the trash can for the ones you want to delete entirely.

Note, the first: this works for individual messages just as well as photos or other items sent via Messages.

Note, the second: scrolling through the list will likely result in selecting something else in the thread with each swipe. If maintaining your important conversations about spy drinks is important, mind what you're doing and double check your checks.

When your point has been proven, delete away!

Now you can clear out some of that space and use it for more productive things, like all those varieties of Angry Birds.